The English Way of Death

"They will dine on human brains."

Writer: Gareth Roberts (Adapted by John Dorney)
Format: Audio
Released: January 2015
Series: Novel Adaptations 04

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II

Synopsis

London, in the summer heatwave of 1930. The Doctor is visiting with Romana and K9 in order to return some library books, but traces of time pollution may change his plans.

A seaside hut holds a strange secret. A biscuit millionaire is hiring assassins. Deadly butlers and solicitors stalk the street.

There is an odd smell in the air. And it might just mean the death of everyone on the planet.

Verdict

The English Way of Death was sadly not the greatest of audio adventures to begin my listening to Big Finish's novel adaptations. I'm not entirely sure whether my lack of reading the novel that this audio was based upon had any impact on why I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I don't quite see why it would effect anything. I just couldn't find a way to get involved in the audio. At times it was boring and very slow to start which was a shame. It was very much suited to its setting of 1930 and I actually think that might have been a contributory factor in my lack of enjoyment. I was slightly surprised that the relationship between the Fourth Doctor and Romana II wasn't really well captured in the audio which was bitterly disappointing. I absolutely adore them together usually but the writing just didn't seem to be too great for them. The reference to City of Death was very good though and I enjoyed the idea of the Doctor overriding the TARDIS randomiser merely to return some overdue books. I didn't really understand why the Doctor didn't want to have K9 without him and Romana after they left the TARDIS but it was interesting to think that he'd managed for five hundred years before the events of The Invisible Enemy. Things started somewhat intriguingly with the unshielded and primitive time corridor and I felt that things could have expanded from there. Stackhouse seemed to a good character from the offset with his twisted body and I liked the idea of the walking dead population. More should have been made of that throughout in my opinion. I did think it was good to mention the Stimulator early on given that it came back in a big way towards the story's conclusion. The threat of initiating a tremor at the Earth's crust was exciting. Mr Closed was a very good character and I loved finding out the origin of his name. That was certainly a lot of fun. The Bureau were an interesting element of the audio and the idea of strict rules of time travel. They'd already been warned about something and that wasn't the Doctor or Romana's arrival. Zodaal made for an average villain with his continued efforts to inflict his will, but he didn't actually seem to do much else. The concept of brain feeding is always good and I absolutely adored the line from the Doctor when he kindly asked "would you zombies mind letting me go?". That was the Fourth Doctor at his very best. K9's little sacrifice was good but I do wish he featured more heavily throughout. The cliffhangers with the likes of the fog and leap of faith weren't overly great but I guess it is a little difficult to incorporate the end of chapters into audio-level cliffhangers. They're not written in the same way. The plot for Zodaal to attempt to break through and travel along the time corridor in a non-physical form was good but it seemed a bit obvious that he would end up trying to use the Doctor as a host. The mention of an Equation of Rassilon was interesting and I'd like to know more about it, but there just seemed to be spells of not much going on and then a lot going on all at once. The ending with the use of ginger pop and reuniting Zodaal with the other half of his consciousness was decent, but there just needed to be more knowledge of what was going on. Overall, a somewhat decent tale but it could have been a lot better. I think I'll enjoy the book much better when I finally get around that.

Rating: 5/10